| Description: | The Milky Way Galaxy is one of the few galaxies, and the only edge-on spiral galaxy, that can be resolved in detail. But it has been a decades-long slog to try to determine its structure and ascertain how it would look to an outside observer. Great progress has been made in the last few decades in understanding the Galactic bar and central molecular zone. But a reliable map of the structure of the Galaxy, particularly spiral structure, has eluded us. For several reasons, that is about to change.
Several advances in Galactic cartography will be reviewed, with an emphasis on mapping of the Galactic stellar disk and bar(s) with red clump giants using data from Spitzer/GLIMPSE, 2MASS, and UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey. |
